To prevent the electrostatic breakdown during the manufacturing process and transportation from damaging the circuit and the conductive layout, the ESD protection circuit is implemented in the conventional circuit design.
With reference to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2, the input signal G_in is delivered via the signal line 2′ into the second metal layer L2 of the display panel. The output signal G_out is passed out from first metal line L1 through the signal line 1′. The ESD protection function is realized by the conductive via layer 3′ electrically bridged between the first metal layer L1 and the second metal layer L2. It's equant to dispose an equivalent resistance between signal line 2′ of the input signal G_in and the signal line 1′ of the output signal G_out (shown in FIG. 3). Therefore, the static electricity accumulated on the signal line 2′ of the input signal G_in would be released while passing through the equivalent resistance. The damage of the electrostatic breakdown can be avoided.
However, the above mentioned ESD protection has certain disadvantages. For example, the conductive via layer 3′ would be disconnected due to the overloaded static electricity accumulation (shown in FIG. 4) and the output function of the display panel would be abnormal.